The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe
"Promises and Commands"
Every command of Scripture comes with the promise of grace for obedience to born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13).
We "work out" that which God "works in." The Apostle Paul's affirmation of Philemon illustrates the truth:
"I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints, that the communication (fellowship) of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:4-6).
Paul tells Philemon that his walk with God and love for others proceeds from realizing and affirming the indwelling presence of the Lord Jesus' qualities of character and enabling. The Apostle called Philemon to receive with love a fellow believer, Onesimus, who had wronged him (Philemon 1:16). Such a response would occur by Philemon acknowledging the "good thing" that dwelled within him through Christ, namely, the love of God (Romans 5:5). Paul did not require Philemon to do the best he could to love Onesimus, but rather to remember the the Lord who had died for Onesimus dwelled within Philemon's heart as the very Life of his life. Through Christ, he could effectually love Onesimus, and Paul indicates in his epistle to the Colossians that Philemon responded well (Colossians 4:9).
Believers live by God's grace and truth in Christ no less than we were born again thereby. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Colossians 2:6). We trusted Him as the bestower of life in raising us from spiritual death. We trust Him as the executor of life in enlivening our humanity to faithfully walk with God. "We also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God" (II Corinthians 13:4). When encountering a command of the New Testament, therefore, we look within its mandate to discover a beating heart of promise - "Christ, the power of God" (I Corinthians 1:24). Our Heavenly Father's standards of character and behavior are far too high for our independent fulfillment of them. Like Philemon, God therefore calls us to "the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you by Christ Jesus." Thereby, and only thereby, does our faith become "effectual" in countenance, demeanor, attitude, word, and deed. "God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (I John 4:9).
We may love the commands of God no less than His promises, regardless of how beyond our ability they may seem. In truth, they all are, from the seemingly least, to the most apparently daunting and impossible. Our Father does not call us to make bricks without straw, but rather provides a heart filled with Christ as a free gift of grace that makes possible every step of obedience. As we acknowledge "every good thing which is in you by Christ Jesus," a far more "effectual" life of trusting and obeying God ensues for His glory, the blessing of others through us, and our own heart's blessed experience of promises and commands.
"Without Me, ye can do nothing… I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
(John 15:5; Philippians 4:13)
Weekly Memory Verse
And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.
(John 17:26)
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